Spare the Rod, Respect the Child: Abuse Is Not Discipline

As a teenager and then a young adult, I witnessed in two different contexts a powerful and publicly praised adult who was not what he appeared. Particularly when I was a young adult, early in my career, I was able to fully recognize that this person was the embodiment of hypocrisy and was certainly not suited for his role dealing with teens in multiple roles of authority.

While I raised my concerns often, being essentially powerless, I had little impact on this situation.

During the seemingly endless controversies surrounding the NFL in the past year—bullying, domestic abuse, child abuse—I am reminded of those experiences and a central lesson I learned: Those in power on the inside know the truth, but will never admit the truth, and will only confront what they are forced to confront when small moments of truth are revealed.

The domestic abuse video and the child abuse photographs (and admissions) are merely the tip of the iceberg of the essential violence fostered and tolerated by the NFL, a culture of violence that spills over into the lives and families of NFL players beyond the playing field.

And to act as if those on the inside of the NFL are not aware of that iceberg below the surface, below the tip the public sees occasionally is more willful ignorance by the public.

And thus we have NFL leaders speaking on Adrian Peterson’s behalf, calling for his right to due process—despite photographs capturing abuse and despite Peterson’s own admissions about his actions, admissions that include:

I have to live with the fact that when I disciplined my son the way I was disciplined as a child, I caused an injury that I never intended or thought would happen. I know that many people disagree with the way I disciplined my child.

I know Peterson has been handled, that these public statements have been vetted and manipulated, but I also know that no amount of framing his actions as “discipline” can mask that his actions are abuse.

Just as there is no justification for a powerful and athletic man to hit his spouse or partner, knocking her unconscious, there is no justification for an adult hitting a child. None.

I must stress here that I am also not only condemning Peterson and his actions (although I strongly condemn those specific action) because Peterson’s attitude and behavior are being replicated across the U.S. daily, justified as the rights of parents, justified by Biblical scripture.

Hitting children remains a cultural norm of not only the home but the state.

Hitting children (distinct from domestic violence) is framed as a debate [1]—while we seem not to concede credibility to those endorsing husbands hitting their wives, we do allow those advocating spanking children credibility.

And that calls into question not just the NFL, but our entire nation, our cultural norms that appear mostly negligent about the safety and health of our children—the least powerful beings in our democracy.

Just as we continue to embrace grade retention despite decades of research showing it is harmful to children—again allowing the topic to be framed as a debate—we are no better than the powers that be in the NFL who certainly know about the iceberg below the surface that we also willfully ignore because we not only turn a blind eye to child abuse in the form of corporal punishment, we pretend that the research doesn’t exit—research from the APA that concludes:

“Until researchers, clinicians, and parents can definitively demonstrate the presence of positive effects of corporal punishment, including effectiveness in halting future misbehavior, not just the absence of negative effects, we as psychologists can not responsibly recommend its use,” Gershoff writes.

The U.S. is a violent nation and our national sport is the extension of our violent selves, a people not overly concerned about the weak, the powerless, the frail.

In Raising Arizona, H.I. laments, “Sometimes it’s a hard world for small things.” While this is true, it appears it remains upon us, the adults, to make sure in every way we can control that the world doesn’t have to be so.

Our response to Adrian Peterson must be that we are not simply disagreeing with him about his choices involving his children; we see abuse where he is unable to recognize it, unable to admit it.

It simply isn’t any parent’s right to decide about abuse. To call it “discipline” and to claim no intent do not matter.

But it would be adding insult to injury even if we take a stand against Peterson (although it appears we won’t) without taking a much wider stance against any form of physical abuse of children.

Ultimately, the only clear line we must take is zero tolerance for corporal punishment.

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[1] Consider how we seem to ignore the significant danger tobacco smoke poses to children, highlighted by how rare bans on smoking with children in the care remain in the U.S. Laws prohibit children buying cigarettes, but because of parental rights, children must suffer second-hand smoke in cars and homes.

However, there is overwhelming evidence that physical punishment is both ineffective and harmful to child development. Former HuffPost Senior Columnist Lisa Belkin has argued that the word “debate” should be left out of the spanking conversation, because the science against it is so clearly one-sided.

“There aren’t two sides. There is a preponderance of fact, and there are people who find it inconvenient to accept those facts,” Belkin wrote in a 2012 column.